RS polls: TMC not 'ruling out' fight for 5th seat

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress didn't rule out the possibility of their fight for the fifth seat in the forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls.

The party has already announced names of Arpita Ghosh, Mausam Noor, Dinesh Trivedi and Subrata Bakshi as the party's candidates and their victory is also certain with the required number MLAs of the party in the state Assembly. Trivedi and Bakshi have filed their nomination papers on Wednesday.

Partha Chatterjee, the party's secretary general, said on Thursday: "The final decision in connection with the fight for the fifth seat is yet to be taken, but we are not ruling out the possibilities."

Stating that the party which didn't have the required

number of MLAs won last time with the help of others,

Chatterjee said: "Mamata Banerjee is the only face of protest against BJP. So there is a strong feeling that it

will become possible to win if a fifth candidate is nominated and it is the feeling of those who want to make our hands stronger."

The political scenario in connection with the Rajya Sabha polls of the five seats in the state had started taking a new turn from Wednesday, since Chatterjee had said that he "was not ruling out" the possibility of supporting an independent candidate for the fifth seat.

This comes at a time

when Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya filed his nomination on Thursday as the joint candidate of CPI(M) and Congress. According to political analysts, the fight would become tougher for CPI(M) and Congress, if Trinamool takes the final decision to fight for the fifth seat.

Meanwhile, BJP has also collected a nomination paper on Thursday.